Citycat's Prowlings

And Now I Have to Move Again

Yes, I am suddenly blogging again after over a year.  I'm not even going to TRY to explain it, except that I did survive to beat Jesus, and then promptly seriously injured myself in like ALL THE POSSIBLE WAYS, but I am currently all in one, non-broken piece and I should probably go knock on wood right now because the Joker keeps warning me about statements like that.

SO!  It has been many months and so much has changed.  Mostly, I got a new job, and it is amazing, and I have spent the last 11 months slowly unclenching.  For the first several months I physically jumped every time my boss came near me.   This was, to say the least, disconcerting for all involved. My co-workers have pretty much all come to the determination that my old job/boss "really fucked [you] up", but things are gloriously better now. My new boss is literally one of my favorite people on the planet and not waking up with a feeling of dread every morning and not having a panic attack every time my blackberry goes off has been glorious.

We also moved into a new house, which I managed to do while ALSO working 18+ hour days AND we threw a huge fourth of July party six days after we moved in.  I pretty much took one look at this house on har.com and informed the Joker that the 12 foot fountain and imported palm trees in the backyard were the tackiest things I had ever seen in my life and I had to have it.  Which brings me to the purpose of this post:

Scenes From The New Backyard:

Ashley and I chatting.  I look up. That is a leaf. That is a leaf. Thatisaleafthatisaleafthat... "Ashley?  Is that... a giant fucking spider?!?!"

Ashley: Screaming, running.  "That is the biggest fucking spider I have ever seen in my life!!"

Me: "Get. Joker."

Ashley goes inside, Joker comes down.

Joker: "Fuck.  I have a plan."

Me:  "I'll be inside."

Joker: Gets hose, attacks spider.

Ashley: Also comes inside.

Spider: Not remotely fazed by water.

Joker: Starting to look concerned.

Dogs: also come inside.

Me: Goes and gets a broom.  "Here, use this."

Joker: Doubtful. Pokes at spider with broom. "That is the biggest fucking spider I have ever seen."

Spider: Moves.

Ashley and I: Screaming. So much screaming.

Joker: "STOP SCARING ME LIKE THAT.  Great. It went higher."

Ashley, dogs and I: Cowering in house."

Joker: "New plan. I think we should all just stay inside."

Thank god we have a pest guy coming Friday.  Until then, I'll be on the roof deck.

posted by Citycat @ 12:27 AM

Older, but Not Wiser, So Much

So I am 33 now, and in just under a year I will beat Jesus, old wise. Which is hysterically funny to me, and pretty much no one else. And I have been making this proclamation, about when, precisely, I will beat Jesus, for years, and once I finally do so I have no idea what I will look forward to.

Which, if the last couple weeks are any indication, may not be a problem, because I will be lucky to live just under another year, at this point. Because, as the title of this post notes, I may be continuing to get older, but I am also continuing to get dumber.

Two weekends ago, I had Nothing To Do. Usually, I have plenty to do, mostly work and client and lawyer related, and so I relish sitting on the couch and watching bad TV because then I am doing something, namely procrastinating, and I am kind of really good at that. But then the weekend came, and there was nothing to do, and I wasn't even getting any emails, including the automatic ones the firm usually sends out. So I promptly lost my damn mind, and started texting all of the people I know to come entertain me. But first, the Joker and I decided to get out of our house and go to my favorite brunch place. And it was eighty degrees and sunny and we ate outside and after some (several) frozen peach bellinis consumed by me, and one bottomless mimosa consumed by Joker (he will not even try a peach drink because peaches are "fuzzy", and this is apparently an abomination), we decided to go to Specs. This is a terrible idea, because Specs is a place that is basically a candy store for adults, and when I first showed up in Houston and found an entire warehouse consisting of 1. gourmet foodstuffs, 2. chocolate, and 3. ALL THE ALCOHOL IN THE WORLD, which they give away to you in free "sample" shots, I promptly named it "The Magic Store." And one should not GO to The Magic Store if one is drunk, because one will spend many hundreds of dollars on things such as an entire gallon of diet sweet tea vodka, several other vodkas, several bottles of wine, assorted flatbreads, bratwursts made of unusual proteins like elk and bison, beers, dip made out of bread and fish eggs, and British appetizers. And we came home and continued to drink, because in my BORED AS FUCK state I declared the day for Day Drinking, and then finally everyone paid attention to my texts and the Boys brought over a ping pong table and I had a beer pong tournament in my garage. Because that makes sense. Then I fell UP the stairs and went to bed.

This weekend was my actual birthday, and let's just say we all learned a valuable lesson about why car bombs are a terrible idea when you are old. But I also got my hair done, and my wonderful hairdresser is going through some issues that make her Brave, and my hair is purple now.

(I kind of love it, but my co-worker today was all, "Did you dye your hair? What... what color is that? ...Yes, yes it is dark, but it is also... is that red?" and yesterday night when I took a shower the red dye was washing out, and combined with the red shampoo I have, I looked like blood was just pooling at my feet.)

I have also discovered the glory that is shellac for nails, and for the first time in my life my nails are not bendy, and I can wear nail polish, and I went for straight up sparkles. Which again, I love, but again, I am 33, and there is some disconnect here. The good news is I can finally wear pants again. I have been wearing a stupid knee brace to try to bring down the pain, swelling, and inflammation I have from the injury I obtained from sitting down a lot*, and that has meant it has been all dresses and skirts for weeks. And I missed pants.

* Ok, seriously y'all. This thing with the knee? That whole DAY falls under the title of this post. Because Joker and I went to Disney, and I was fine, and then I came home and closed a deal and worked 17 hours sitting in the same position for weeks. And I started to notice that every time I got up I fell down again, because my knee was excruciatingly painful, and did not like holding up my body, or bending, or doing anything that knees are typically known for. So after I closed my deal we were slow, and I decided that since I was down to my last pair of contacts and they weren't the right prescription anyway, and also my knee no longer worked, I decided I would spend the day visiting various doctors. The plan was, run to the eye doctor, get a prescription, then go to the orthopedist and try to convince them not to laugh at me and tell me that maybe I should try NOT SITTING all day on my knee, and that would fix my imaginary problem. This should not have been a stressful day.

This was a stressful day.

I had noted the night before when I came home to Joker that "my damn eye was irritating me." Turns out, you should MAYBE PAY ATTENTION to those things, because I went to the eye doctor all, "I just need a check up and a prescription, lalala", and she was all, "and that GIANT FUCKING INFECTION IN YOUR EYE, RIGHT, THAT IS A PROBLEM?" and I was like, "um." And then she looked at the eye, and put some drop in my eye which she said would numb it, and then she explained that it was in really bad shape, like to the point that she could even give me a prescription because it was so inflamed it was messing up the eye machines. So she gave me steroid drops and told me to wear my glasses, which is awesome because I can't both wear my glasses and not fall down stairs.

So now I was one doctor down and not in a good place, and I still had to go to the orthopedist. On the way there I noted that while my knee was still a throbbing mass of pain, I felt kind of awesome, because that numbing stuff was working and I realized, right then, that the knee had only been sort of masking all the pain from the eye.

So I go to the other doctor, and they x-ray me, and I was completely convinced that everything was fine and they were going to accuse me of being a big baby. So the nurse downloaded my x-rays to the doctors computer, and left the room, and of course I decided to spy on my x-rays, despite having no medical training. And I saw one of them, and even I was able to note that the one bone there? Was kind of... sideways? And huh? But maybe it was just because my leg was bent, so... So the doctor comes in and I tell her about the pain and the sitting, and she goes, "Yep, I can see what is wrong with you," and turned around the screen, where low and behold, there was that x-ray with the sideways bone. And she explained that my kneecap? Was not at ALL where it was supposed to be, and so it was obliterating my cartilage with every step, and my leg was swollen down to the ankle, and everything was inflamed. And she told me I had Runner's Knee, and it was likely because I was sitting on it in a way that caused it Great Stress, and also, see here? Where the bone has gone all pointy? That was arthritis, but because I am young they don't call it arthritis, like THAT was a brilliant save of the medical community. And at that point I was relatively broken, because the day had not gone well and I was going to have to go to the pharmacy for the second time for more prescriptions, and also the clients had suddenly determined that the pile of work I had been told to go "pencils down" on was very much "pencils UP", and also why was it not done yet? And so I did all I could do, and looked at the doctor and made her verify to me that I had managed to give myself Runner's Knee from sitting down too much, and then I laughed until I cried.

So that happened. And so I have made it to 33 but beating Jesus is looking less likely as in the last six months I have broken my foot while walking and annihilated my knee while sitting, and there isn't anything left for me not to do. At this point my friends have decided I operate on some anti-risk curve, and should spend my life doing insane things like sky diving and mountain climbing and shark diving, because those activities are relatively less likely to hurt me.

As long as I NEVER lay down.

Labels: doctor, injuries, Old.

posted by Citycat @ 10:49 PM

Happy Easter!

Um... two and a half years later?

Sigh. No point in trying to explain anything about the lack of writing or what all has happened in the past TWO AND A HALF FUCKING YEARS, but I can highlight as follows:

1. I left my firm and went to a new firm.

2. The Joker and I finally took our honeymoon, a couple months before our fourth year anniversary.

3. K and E? Now have a mini- K&E!

4. My ass has failed to get any smaller.

5. The oatmeal is gone.

6. I apparently gave myself Runner's Knee by sitting too much.

And that... that is the highlights. I have more excuses for 2011, being that most of it was AWFULAWFULBADINALLWAYS, but my only excuse for 2010 is that one of the partners at my old firm and I decided we were 23 years old again and I spent a disproportionate amount of time clubbing until 4 am (really) on school nights (no, really) and I was generally too tired/hung over to write. And when I say 2011 was bad, I mean it was bad in the sense that I broke my foot at a wedding in DC in September, and that occurrence was officially the best thing that happened to me all year. So, yeah.

ANYWAY, now it is no longer 2011! It is 2012, and already many, many things better than breaking my foot have happened. For example, New Years Day was officially the Most Fun I Have Had In Years, and involved day drinking in Dallas with fantastic new friends who may, sometimes, fantasize about sleeping with the ghost of Margaret Thatcher, which is hard because she isn't even dead. And then the Joker and I went to Disney World AND Universal Studios, and do you know what is at Universal Studios? The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which is a place I would like to live. Additionally, they have a Jurassic Park ride that you can make your husband go on, and there is only one lap bar, and his lap is many inches higher than your lap, which on any other ride is kind of terrifying but on Jurassic Park it is awesome, because you can duck under the front of the boat entirely and the gigantic wave of water will crash spectacularly against his face, and only sightly dampen your hem. And you will laugh for hours, and he will hate you.

Anyway, I also just got back from a trip to San Antonio with my parents for the Joker's and my combined anniversary/birthdays, and that was fun and filled with singing at piano bars and drinking hurricanes, and also meeting family that is 1. three hours away, and 2. I did not know existed. And in 2 weeks work is flying me to DC, and I am going for a week, so I can see Peanut and K&E and Mini K&E, and A and everyone except S, who up and moved to Boston awhile ago.
And now I am home and because we were gone the woofs are extra snuggly.

Anyway, the point is it has been two and a half years, and I miss writing, and I miss how I remember so much of my life because I wrote about it, so I am trying again.

Labels: Back, Excuses

posted by Citycat @ 7:28 PM

Oatmeal of Biblical Proportions

It's apparently November, which I think is a giant cosmic lie, because as far as I am concerned it is still March and therefore I posted just last month so I don't have to feel guilty and that is my story and I'm sticking to it.

Labels: diet, oatmeal

posted by Citycat @ 8:46 PM

Sisyphus

Today, I was asked to go into work to update a document that didn't exist.

So that was fun.

Once all necessary parties got on board with me that, no, the document didn't actually exist, I got to spend three hours creating it.

So that was more fun.

THEN, because there had already been so much fun, the document got corrupted, went poof!gonebye, and returned to it's previous state of non-existence.

Thank god for 24 hour tech support.

Labels: futile., work

posted by Citycat @ 1:08 AM

Hee!

I just checked my stats and someone found this blog searching Google for "city cat blog falling down."

Hello random searcher! If you don't know me, you have no idea how right you were.

In other news, we are officially on contract for a house! We meet with the broker tomorrow to disseminate paperwork and I have to schedule inspections, and we have to pay a lot of people who we didn't even know two weeks ago many thousands of dollars, but we found a perfect house below our budget and are SO EXCITED about these developments.

In other news, the Joker's review of the exercise DVD's has boiled down to "Fuck Pilates."

Look at me with the updating! Hopefully, more soon!

Labels: House hunting

posted by Citycat @ 10:21 PM

Why We Are Watching Entirely Too Much HGTV.

Happy 2009! Now that it is almost February! It seems like every post I am all "I have been gone, but now I will be talky!" Y'all? I think it is time to just realize- I lie. I mean well, but things get busy and I don't like posting at work. But I will try, with the posting.

ANYWAY, things have been going well in the new year for our household, despite the fact that the economy is nosediving, and some guy committed suicide by jumping off the parking garage next to my office the other day, and really? A bunch of transactional lawyers probably don't need to feel like we are in the great stockmarket crash that started the Great Depression right now. But everyone at work seems optimistic enough that we'll all continue to be gainfully employed for the foreseeable future, which yay, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the Joker and I decided to buy a house.

This... this was maybe somewhat of a snap decision on our parts. As in, I thought you needed to have 20% down to buy a house, which we do not. So initially I was all "We will renew our lease and save money and then when I get my bonus in 2010 (ha! with the bonuses! we were all so optimistic 6 months ago) we will buy a house. The first problem with that plan came when our Pupster, who the shelter promised us would be "50, 55 lbs max" passed 60 pounds at 10 months old. The Pupster limit at this apartment? 50 lbs. Now, the fact that we have had said Pupster for almost 6 months now and the apartment people don't actually even know about her yet means we are likely to get away with this for a few more months (lease up in May), but she's going to keep growing and at some point you can't hide a 70 or 80 pound dog. (Also? Dogs are not so much like drivers license pictures where you can totally lie about 20 pounds. She is not going to look remotely like a 50 pound dog. Period.)

So we began the search for apartments that accept big dogs, and that search is hard, especially when some of the brain trusts here define "large dog" as "35 pounds." 35 pounds?? That is a large CAT, people, not DOG. But anyway.

Then we had a realization the night of the BCS Championship game, where he roots for Texas and I have always been an OSU girl, and there are 4 minutes left in a close game we both care about and the dog is all but crossing her legs crying to go out. We realized that a backyard would be awesome. And then we thought that we could even work it out so she could have a room where there wasn't a lot of stuff to chew, so she wouldn't need to be crated when we left anymore, since the Joker is starting school in the Fall and won't be around all day anymore. And THEN I discovered that thanks to the FHA and the VA Loan, that Joker qualifies for, we don't need 20% down at ALL. So I made a crazy budget and we called a realtor and applied for a loan and we think we've even found the house we want.

So, um, yeah. If you read the above paragraph, you may come to a conclusion. And that conclusion would be correct.

The Joker and I are buying a house mainly so our dog can have her own room.

Somehow I went and became one of those urban working women with no children cliches when I wasn't looking.

But that's fine, because we are both turning thirty in a few months and that seems as good a time as any to own real estate. Happy Birthday to us! Have a mortgage.

Other than that, both the Joker and I are trying to eat better and lose some weight. I have done this by replacing my usual breakfast taco from the chinese guy in the tunnel with one I make myself and buying a fitness ball to sit on instead of the couch. The Joker, on the other hand, has done a complete 180 and is drinking smoothies filled with flax seeds and he just bought 11 different exercise DVDs, one of which is the 30 Day Shred, and I am afraid.

Hope everything is going well, I will update soon!

(Remember, that is very probably a lie).

Labels: House hunting, Pupster.

posted by Citycat @ 8:59 PM